The house that Jill built : a review of feminist approaches to teaching argument in the composition classroom

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Abstract

Congruent with the second wave of feminism and continuing into the 1990s, a group of feminist compositionists felt that argument should not have a major, if any, place in the feminist classroom and began to redefine, revision, and reposition argument. With a rhetorician’s bias, this report looks at one articulation of why they turned away from argument—Sally Miller Gearhart’s claim that “any intent to persuade is an act of violence”—, what they turned to, some critique surrounding their approaches and theories, and how a broader understanding of rhetoric and the role of agonism in rhetoric and education can add depth to the feminist approach.